AUTHORIZING HUMOR: LUCIAN'S DEMONAX AND CYNIC RHETORIC

R. Bracht Branham Emory University

ABSTRACT

Lucian's Demonax comprises a collection of humorous anecdotes about an eclectic Cynic philosopher and contains very little continuous narrative This paper argues that the text reflects the deliberate choice of a rhetorical style cultivated above all by the Cynics, which systematically exploits the comic resources of surprise and incongruity and takes as its characteristic vehicle the chreia or pointed anecdote Wit has an enthymematic character it requires the audience to perform an act of mental collaboration that can be variously described as bridging a logical gap, moving between alien codes, frames of reference, or universes of discourse, or, in Koestler's classic formulation, "bisociatmg" divergent matrices of meaning Demonax uses wit Lucianically to provoke his interlocutors to consider themselves and their situations from unexpected and often incongruous perspectives

Men practice rhetoric with speeches They practice philosophy by being silent, by being playful, and, yes by Zeus, by being the butt of jokes and the jester Plutarch, Symposiaka

Lucian's Demonax may well strike a modern reader as an oddity. Its title, ΔΗΜΩΝΑΚΤΟΣ ΒΙΟΣ or The Life of Demonax, leads us to expect a biographical account and yet it contains almost no continuous narrative. Instead, after a brief introduction, the work consists of a collection of short, jocular anecdotes about an Athenian philosopher whom Lucían claims to have known personally. It is in fact the primary source for Demonax's life (Jones: 91-92). But no attempt is made to join one story to the next, nor is the sage ever shown, like Socrates in Plato or Xenophon, discoursing philosophically on the immortality of the soul or tying hapless interlocutors in logical knots. The argument of this paper is that the Demonax's formal oddity, unlike all Lucian's other works, reflects the deliberate choice of a rhetorical style cultivated above all by the Cynics, which systematically exploits the comic resources of surprise and incon­ gruity and takes as its characteristic vehicle the chreia, or pointed anecdote. I wish first to highlight some of the salient features of Cynic

-33" 34 SEMEIA rhetoric as they bear on the Demonax and Dio Chrysostom's Diogenes (Or.8) and then to explore how and why these authors chose to avail themselves of this particular tradition. Seen in this light both works emerge as interesting examples of the literary adaptation of a popular rhetorical procedure and as a point of intersection between oral and written performance. That the comic chreia was the hallmark of the Cynic style can be confirmed by surveying the anecdotes preserved about the sect's founder, Diogenes of Sinope, in Diogenes Laertius. Almost everything we know of him is expressed in the form of anecdotes. This in itself is not distinctive since chreiai are told of philosophers and wise men generally. But it has long been recognized, even by casual readers, that the stories told about Diogenes are simply funnier than those Diogenes Laertius reports about other philosophers. D. R. Dudley takes this as an indication that the stories about him may well be true, but the opposite inference is equally possible (Dudley: 29 n. 2; for the best account of the chreia traditions about philosophers see Kindstrand: 217 ff.). The humor of the Cynic traditions about Diogenes reflect the polish of a self-consciously rhetorical practice which made optimal use of the argumentative resources of the short but memorable anecdote. Indeed, Cynic rhetoric drew praise on formal grounds from as discerning a critic as Demetrius, who notes in particular the importance of humor for the Cynic style (κυνικός τρόπος)1. If we ask why the comic anecdote would have been so assiduously cultivated by Diogenes' followers, several reasons seem obvious: Cynicism was from its inception a popular philosophy opposed to the learned theoretical teach­ ings of Plato, and, later, of Zeno and Epicurus. What form would be better

1 Demetrius shows himself keenly aware of the rhetoric of humor. While dis­ cussing the graces (χάριτες) of the elegant (γλαφυρός) style, he observes that the most potent grace (η ουνατωτάτη χάρις) is created by introducing humor into an otherwise noncomic context; he cites as an example a jest of Xenophon made at the expense of a dour Persian (Demetrius 134-5) Demetrius admires this technique precisely because the writer produces an effect ostensibly at odds with his material He touches on the κυνικός τρόπος explicitly in two passages In the first (Demetrius 170), he notes the affinity between the pointed humor of Crates' encomium of the lentil and that of anecdotes and maxims generally (χρεία, γνώμη) Later (Demetrius 259-61) in discussing the stylistic sources of forcefulness (οεινότης), Demetrius observes that it is created in comedy and Cynic literature by the element of playfulness (¿κ παιοιας), he cites as examples a line of Crates' "Cynic epic" and a chreia about Diogenes at the Olympics "At the conclusion of the hoplite race Diogenes ran up and proclaimed himself victor over all mankind—in nobility of character (καλοκαγαθία) " Demetrius observes that the chreia creates laughter (yeAdrou) and astonishment (θαυμάζεται), and has a gentle bite (ύποοάκνει) He then quotes another chreia about Diogenes and observes that its wit is covertly pointed and significant (ή κευθομενη εμφασις) This complexity of effect, he says, is why the whole genre (ειοος) of Cynic discourse (λόγος) is like a dog that wags its tail and bites at the same time Cf Lucían, Bis Accusatus 33. (All references to Lucian's text are to M D. Macleod's OCT editions ) BRANHAM AUTHORIZING HUMOR 35 suited to propagate such a philosophy than anecdotes that were short enough to be easily remembered and made memorable and significant by their calculated use of comic incongruity and surprise7 The perspectives enabled by humor dovetail with central Cynic themes in ways that are hardly incidental It is this which makes "Cynic rhetoric" a recognizable generic category, distinguished by its serious use of humor as a heuristic device From this practice of "serious jesting" evolved a set of tech­ niques—unexpectedness, emphasis, implicitness (the techniques of wit as analyzed by Koestler 82-86)—by which humor was made a means of perception This mode of writing is sometimes associated with the σπουδογέλοιος, or seriocomic performer, a term applied explicitly by Strabo to the Cynic Memppus (16 2 24 Kramer's ed ) When I speak of Cynic rhetoric, therefore, I refer to a style of perfor­ mance preserved in the chreiai about Cynics like Diogenes or Crates and elaborated formally by such writers as Dio Chrysostom and Lucían Like any chreia, the Cynic anecdote may make its point through significant acts as well as words The informing assumptions of Cynic rhetoric also form the theme of many Cynic chreiai παρρησία, "freedom of speech," and avaihtia, "freedom from shame in action," or simply "shamelessness " It was this freedom from shame or social constraint (νόμος) in speech and action that set the Cynic preacher apart from his fellows as one who had the gumption to tell embarrassing truths and was willing to risk social ostracism rather than conform to rules which he taught were nothing more than conventional prejudice (νόμος = δόξα) It was probably this antmomian tendency at the heart of Cynicism that led to the cultivation of the rhetorical possibilities of humor as a way of making the Cynic perspective accessible and persuasive to a larger audience 2 The defining qualities of the Cynic style are epitomized in the figure of Diogenes as preserved by tradition a self-dramatizing iconoclast who would teach anyone who would listen, by paradox, hyperbole and subversive wit In Theon's terms, most of the chreiai about him are oral (λογικαί) and voluntary (αποφαντικαί), placing him in a context to which his remark is a response Though he is not infrequently answering a question, he is shown more typically reacting spontaneously to something he has seen or heard (By contrast, almost all the stories about Demonax present him responding to a specific question The questioner himself is often identified ) If we attempt to classify the form of the sayings themselves according to rhetorical categories, we could find examples of

2 The rise of Cynicism was accompanied by the development of new forms of satiric and parodie literature Unfortunately, these are poorly documented See, how­ ever, A A Long 636-9, and Martin Drury 851-4, cf Branham chap 1 For the Menippean tradition, see Relihan 36 SEMEIA most of the standard types used by Theon (e.g., syllogistic, symbolic, witty, wishful, etc.), but that will tell us little, given the size of the collection. Theon himself cites and classifies the following chreia: On seeing a youth, who was the son of an adulterer, in the act of throwing stones, Diogenes the Cynic said: "Stop boy, you may unwittingly hit your father" (Butts: 3.135-38; see also Hock and O'Neil: 92). Theon calls Diogenes' remark an example of a mixed type, both symbolic and witty. But it is what makes a remark witty and how that wit functions thematically that makes Diogenes' chreiai rhetorically interesting. In this case the wit resides in using the apparently unrelated fact of the boy's birth to reproach his stone throwing. Usually the implications of Diogenes' witticisms are more specifically philosophical. This example is representative, however, in that it is the incongruous nature of Diogenes' connections that produces the recurring and self-consciously comic character of his chreiai. All true wit has an enthymematic character: it requires the audience to perform an act of mental collaboration that can be variously described as bridging a logical gap; moving between alien codes, frames of reference, or universes of discourse; or, in Koestler's classic formulation, bisociating divergent matrices of meaning (the themes of Koestler: chaps. 1-4; cf. also Cohen: 120-36). His analysis of this process convinced Koestler that humor exemplified "the logical pattern" of inventive thinking generally. In whatever language we choose to describe it, it is precisely this feature that distinguishes the chreiai about Diogenes. One of Diogenes' favorite tactics was to teach by example, using immediate experience to dramatize a question or subvert a theoretical quandary: Once he lit a lamp in broad daylight and walked about saying, "I am looking for a human being" (άνθρωπος D.L. 6.41). After Plato had elaborated a definition of man in terms of genus and differentia as a "featherless biped," Diogenes walked in with a plucked chicken saying, "Here is Plato's man!" (D.L. 6.40). When confronted with a theoretical question, Diogenes would shift the argument to another plane by rejecting the question's premise: Thus when asked, perhaps by the Atheist Theodorus, if he believed in the gods, he retorted, "Of course—when I see how they hate you!" (D.L. 6.42). Similarly, when asked where he saw good men in Greece he replied wryly: "Good men nowhere, good boys in Sparta" (D. L. 6.27). In each of these examples the humor is deliberately provocative: It is used to raise questions about what it is to be human or a good man, or to cast doubt on the utility of theoretical disputes on the existence of the gods or the proper definition of homo sapiens. While any of these anecdotes would repay detailed analysis, my point here is merely to emphasize the purposeful nature of Cynic humor. Although Dudley recognizes that Diogenes' "shamelessness" (avaiòeia) was philosophically BRANHAM: AUTHORIZING HUMOR 37 motivated, he fails to see that the traditions about him make wit essential to his chief didactic method, his much-vaunted παρρησία ("freedom of speech"): "the finest thing in the world" (D. L. 6.69). Cynic rhetoric developed a distinctive set of terms and gestures reflecting its thematic emphasis on such characteristic values παρρησία and àvatòeLa. The distinguishing traits of Cynic practice are preserved not only in many brief chreiai about Diogenes or Crates, but even in the polished orations of the sophistic moralist, Dio Chrysostom. Dio's treat­ ment of familiar Cynic topoi, such as "Diogenes at the Games," (Or 8; cf. Malherbe: Epistle 38 of Diogenes; cf. also note 1), serves to illustrate how acutely aware skillful practitioners were of utilizing a traditional style of performance suited to their own rhetorical purposes. The impact of Dio's piece is distorted if divorced from the basic conventions of Cynic jesting. It recounts Diogenes' visit to the Isthmian games, a traditional locus for generalizing about human life in light of the athletes' trials and the motley diversity of the crowd thronging to see them. In Dio's account Diogenes uses this occasion to develop the theme of the Cynic as agonist, using the traditional but inherently improbable and comic idea of Heracles as a paradigmatic Cynic (27-35). Part °f what makes Diogenes' diatribe inter­ esting is the rhetorical challenge of finding similarities between the disparate terms of his comparison; it is also this feature which makes his mode of argument comic. The process of developing the metaphor gives scope to the moral tenets of Cynic discourse as Diogenes defines the old hero's labors as distinctly Cynic achievements. But it is the final act of his performance which will pull most readers up short, just as, Dio reports, it did the original audience: after completing his praise of Heracles, Diogenes abruptly squats (καθεζόμενος) and does "something disgraceful" (¿ποί€ί η των αοόζων; 36) before the crowd. This might seem a distinctly odd way to conclude a moral homily, but it makes perfect sense in the context of Cynic rhetoric. What may seem an incomprehensible bit of buffoonery or tasteless clowning is actually crucial to the interpretation of Dio's entire oration. It works on several levels. First, it alludes to Heracles' final exploit as just recounted by Diogenes, the cleaning of the Augean stables, which the orator interprets as anticipating his own healthy disrespect for common opinion (οόζα; 35). Both the comparison of the lowly Cynic to the ancient hero and the public act of defecation strike at the arbitrary, provisional nature of conventional categories, "lifting their pressure for a moment and suggesting other ways of structuring reality." These are deliberately structured Cynic incongruities and as much a part of the movement as the Cynic knapsack (πήρα). As Mary Douglas argues of the joker generally, the Cynic jester "appears to be a privileged person who can say certain things in a certain way which confers immunity [i.e., 38 SEMEIA

παρρησία]. . . . Safe within the permitted range of attack, he lightens for everyone the oppressiveness of social reality, demonstrates its arbitrari­ ness by making light of formality in general, and expresses the creative possibilities of the situation (Douglas: no, 107; for the joke-like structure of some NT parables, see 99-100)." Specifically, the surprise ending validates Diogenes' role as a Cynic preacher by dramatizing his commit­ ment to say what is true and to act according to nature, undeterred by shame, society's revenge on the non-conformist. It is precisely his willing­ ness to make himself an object of ridicule, to engage in unseemly, shameful, or ridiculous acts, that empowers Diogenes as a Cynic moral authority. Otherwise he would just be another philosopher haranguing crowds. His shocking peroration is an act of philosophical jesting directed at the audience. It is an action chreia of an unmistakably Cynic kind and serves as a kind of signature authenticating the Cynic nature of the speech. No work could be better suited to complement the argument that Lucian is best understood as an heir of seriocomic or Cynic traditions as we have characterized them here than his portrait of his teacher, the philosopher Demonax. The Demonax connects Lucian directly to the philo­ sophical practice of serious jesting and provides an opportunity to examine the particular stamp which he gives it. Formally Boswell's portrait of Johnson is the closest thing in English to the Demonax. Like Johnson—once called by a friend "the Demonax of the present age" (Boswell: 40)—the philosopher appears in a series of dramatized moments rather than a continuous narrative. Lucian's decision to use detached incidents, or chreiai, as his medium rather than a connected narrative, as in his accounts of the pagan renegades Alexander and Peregrinus, shows that his subject is not Demonax's career but his way of life (βίος) or character. This is best revealed by letting Demonax appear in his own words unlike the satiric target Alexander of Abonoteichus, for example, who is never allowed to speak for himself. Lucian knew that character "must be manifested in the concrete" (Rader: 28) to be memorable and that the uniqueness of a character is best displayed in expressive moments. The conventional vehicle for sayings of wise men, the pointed anecdote (or chreia), was perfectly suited for this purpose. It places Demonax in a rhetorical frame used especially with idealized figures and associated in particular with Diogenes and the Cynics (cf. Theon 1.40-43: Butts' ed.). It thus allows Lucian to use a series of discrete episodes to construct a model of the rhetorical uses of humor exemplifying a comic BRANHAM: AUTHORIZING HUMOR 39 method and moral stance clearly indicative of his own.3 He gives the collection a biographical shape by beginning with a brief narration of Demonax's education and philosophical temperament and concluding with chreiai about his attitude toward death. The Demonax probably represents the first instance in which many of the chreiai it contains passed from oral to written performance.4 If Aristotle is right when he says the comic genres tend to represent men as worse than they are in making them appear funny, then present­ ing an image of authority, a source of admiration, poses an interesting rhetorical problem for writers whose heroes are laughable. It is one that Plato and the followers of Diogenes solved by emphasizing the comic qualities of their heroes but presenting them as instrumental to a larger purpose that may well seem absurd when viewed through a conventional lens. Lucian is deliberately following their lead when he seeks to embody the oxymoronic ideal of a "comic authority figure" in Demonax. His express purpose is twofold: to preserve the memory of Demonax among the best men and through him to provide a contemporary pattern (κανών, 2.) by which men can shape themselves (αυτούς ρύθμιζαν; 2). Thus the Demonax as a whole is epideictic. It is meant to commemorate a particular life as it embodied an iterable ideal. After briefly sketching Demonax's upbringing and philosophical temper, his indifference to the things conventionally regarded as good (3), Lucian turns to the philosopher's role models (4): Although Demonax was too intellectually wary to commit himself to the doctrines of a particular philosophical sect,5 he is said to have most in common with Socrates and Diogenes. Lucian stresses, how­ ever, that Demonax eschews the exhibitionism of Diogenes' antics and the hauteur of Socratic irony, which, as Aristotle remarks, was sometimes felt to be disdainful (Rhet. 2.1380a). Instead we are shown Demonax adapting Cynic license (παρρησία) and Socratic techniques of irony to fit his own philosophical style, in which wit is used as a delicate weapon for punctur­ ing the windy self-concepts of his interlocutors. Thus, if Demonax takes Socrates and Diogenes as his models, it is less for the specific content of their philosophies than for their success in

3 I am not concerned here with the historicity of Lucian's portrait, but with the qualities of the character whom he presents as his teacher and exemplar Cf K. Funk's notion of Demonax as Lucian's Idealbild (Funk 558-574) 4 Lucían chose to retain the chreiai, so closely tied to oral performance, presum­ ably to preserve the live traditions about Demonax in circulation in the Athens of his day (cf Jones 93) This method of preserving the philosopher's image lends his por­ trait an air of authenticity It may also explain why the wit of the Demonax often seems less sophisticated than Lucian's own creations 5 Cf Demonax 62 "Asked which of the philosophers was most of his taste, he said, VI admire them all, Socrates I revere, Diogenes I admire, Anstippus I love '" (Fowlers trans ) Not a single chreia identifies Demonax with a point of doctrine 40 SEMEIA expressing ethical perspectives in highly idiosyncratic comic styles Like Diogenes or the Socrates of Plato's Symposium, Demonax makes of himself a didactic instrument which issues naturally in a comic mode Every anecdote Lucían tells represents an attempt to preserve and examine dis­ tinctive aspects of Demonax's unassuming didactic style Before assessing the portrait that emerges from the collection as a whole, I will analyze how Lucían establishes Demonax's ethos in the only extended chreia he recounts, that of Demonax's trial, which serves as a bridge between the introductory narrative (1-10) and the collection of shorter chreiai Demonax's "Apology" shows the sage at a dramatic moment, playing the role assigned to the philosopher-hero by tradition, but easily evading its tragic potential Thus the repeated allusions to Socrates concentrated in this passage are used to mark differences m their responses to similar situations as well as to enhance Demonax's stature and to suggest the injustice of the charges against him If we break it down into its constituent parts, the chreia of the trial embodies in narrative form conventional features of judicial rhetoric (cf Mack and Robbins) Assuming that there actually was a trial, we can imagine that there would originally have been numerous versions of the incident reflected m various chreiai Lucian's version is clearly a polished amalgam (one para­ graph m the original) which serves his aims at this juncture in his biogra­ phy by enlarging upon certain thematically significant points in the action, in the manner of an expanded chreia 6 1) Proem of Praise Accordingly Demonax was regarded with reverence (ίθαυμαζον) dit Athens, both by the collective Assembly and by the officials, he always continued to be a person of great consequence in their eyes 2) Statement of Case, Comparison to Socrates And this though most of them had been at first offended with him, and hated him as heartily as their ancestors had Socrates Besides his candor and independence (παρρησία και ίλαυθϋρία), there had been found Anytuses and Meletuses to repeat the historic charge 1) he had never been known to sacrifice, and 2) he made himself singular by avoiding initiation at Eleusis

6 For the expanded chreia, see Theon, Hock and O'Neil 100, for the use of praise to open a chreia, see Hermogenes on ''elaboration77 (ergasia), Hock and O Neil 176 BRANHAM: AUTHORIZING HUMOR

3) Refutation of Charges by Challenging the Stasis, or Issue, of the Case; Facts Admitted but Justified by Redefining their Quality: 7

A) On this occasion he showed his courage by appearing in a garland and festal attire, and then pleading his cause before the people with a dash of unwanted asperity (τραγυτερον) infused into his ordinarily mod­ erate tone. On the count of never having sacrificed to Athena, "Men of Athens," he said, "there is nothing wonderful in this (μη θαυμάσητζ); it was only that I gave the goddess credit for being able to do very well without sacrifices from me."

B) And in the matter of the Mysteries, his reason for not following the usual practice was this: if the Mysteries turned out to be bad, he would never be able to keep quiet about it to the uninitiated, but must dissuade them from the ceremony; while if they were good, his philanthropia would tempt him to divulge them.

4) Spontaneous Acquittal; Malice Converted to Veneration: The Athenians, stone in hand already, were at once disarmed, and from that time onward paid him honor and respect, which ultimately rose to reverence (θαύμαζαν).

5) Reproach as Epilogue; Argument from Example: Yet he had opened his case with a bitter enough (τραχυτέρω) reproof: "Men of Athens, you see me garlanded; proceed to sacrifice me, then; your former offering [i.e., Socrates] was deficient in this formality." (ET in Lucian 1905: Dem. 11)

7 Cf. Kennedy* 18-19: "A speaker in planning a speech, or a critic in analyzing it, was encouraged to define the stasis, or basic issue of the case. There are four mam forms of stasis fact (also known as conjecture), definition, quality and jurisdiction The question is one of quality if the facts and definitions are admitted by all parties, but the action is justified on other grounds " 42 SEMEIA

Lucian's presentation of Demonax's trial exhibits a surprising com­ plexity in its use of verbal repetition and rhetorical structure to support its central argument—that Demonax is rightly regarded as a modern Socrates. Demonax is compared to Socrates by Lucian twice (in section 2 above):

1) for his ελευθερία and παρρησία; ζ) for having accusers like Anytus and Meletus.

In addition, Demonax explicitly compares himself to Socrates in the epilogue (section 5). His trial is, therefore, offered as a reenactment or re- figuring of that of Socrates, but the overtly drawn parallels mask some equally significant differences. Of course, the political dimension to the case against Socrates, expressed in the charge of "corrupting the young," is absent; rather the analogy with Socrates is that in accusing Demonax of not sacrificing or joining the mysteries the Athenians are charging him with standing outside the bounds of community—of illicit individualism. Lucian explicitly states that the motive of the attack was social and not religious: Demonax's freedom of conduct had excited the people's hatred (μίσος), just as Socrates' had (προ αυτού). But that freedom is defined in the specifically Cynic terms of παρρησία and ελευθερία. This is where an element of subterfuge emerges in the rhetorical conflation of Demonax with Socrates. For while Socrates is effectively used to valorize Demonax, their responses to the charge of religious misconduct actually serve to distinguish them. According to both Xenophon and Plato, Socrates was pious, observed the customary rituals, and urged his friends to consult Delphi on difficult matters. Consequently, he denied the charge that he did not recognize the gods of the state. In his first response (section 3), however, Demonax questions the need to sacrifice in an open challenge to traditional religious belief. In his second response (section 3), which is reported rather than quoted, Demonax's rhetorical strategy becomes clear. While conceding the factual basis of the charges against him—unlike Socrates—he seeks to redefine the quality of his actions so as to make them acceptable to the jury (see note 7). (Thus if he does not sacrifice, it is because he thinks the gods have no need of what he can offer; if he does not join the mysteries, it is because his φιλανθρωπία would compel him to divulge the truth about them.) Both Demonax's responses are clearly meant to portray his willing­ ness to tell the truth regardless of the consequences (παρρησία), but the second, which is decisive in winning over the jury, is also a demonstration of φιλανθρωπία, a subordinate Cynic virtue associated above all with Crates (see Dudley: 42-44)—not Socrates. The success of Demonax's deceptively simple defense is dramatized, as the spontaneous response of BRANHAM AUTHORIZING HUMOR 43 the jury to his evident φιλανθρωπία converts their hatred to veneration (θαύμαζαν), the peripeteia thus returns us to the very terms of praise used to introduce Demonax in the proem (εθαυμάζον), which the trial itself had called into question Similarly artful is the way the people are said to take on qualities ascribed to Demonax in the preceding section (πράος) as they are converted to his point of view If this analysis is correct, then the comparison with Socrates is used in part as rhetorical cover for Lucian's celebration of the more properly Cynic conception of freedom embodied in Demonax That this is, in fact, the argumentative tendency of the episodes seems confirmed by the epilogue (section 5) At first the epilogue may seem puzzling Why does Lucían put this incident, which came at the beginning of the trial, at the end of his account7 The epilogue does, of course, serve to recapitulate the salient themes of the trial by digressing to its starting point, but it is not simply a summation It shifts the emphasis from Demonax's φιλανθρωπία and the people's admiration for him (section 4) back to a more emphati­ cally Cynic style of confrontational truth-telling (παρρησία) Thus, like the first direct quotation of Demonax (section 3), his remarks in the epilogue are termed τραγυτερον ("rather rough") The context of the quotation is equally significant Demonax compares himself directly to Socrates, reproaches the jury and parodies the charges against him by appearing at his trial in the guise of an animal wreathed for sacrifice By ending on this note of Cynic theatricality, Lucían is acknowledging the distinctively Cynic cast of his hero even as he claims Socratic authority for his diver­ gence from communal norms 8 One way to establish the authority of a marginal figure is to pit him against the established authorities, to contrast his ethos with theirs The Demonax who appears wearing a garland at his own trial is notably free of any trace of self-seriousness (αλαζονεία) Indeed, he gets into trouble precisely through a failure to take "serious things" seriously as his attitude toward the Mysteries shows (11, 34) This, paradoxically, is made the immediate source of his authority The words for laughing and smil­ ing appear repeatedly m the stories about him Thus when asked if he is worried about being eaten by birds and dogs after his death (the night­ mare of the epic hero) he replies that he will be glad to be of use (66, cf 35) Similarly, when the sophist Favormus asked him what philosophical school he preferred, inviting him to identify himself as a "serious"

° A trial before his fellow citizens had become a kind of rite of passage authenti­ cating the philosopher's claim to his title It may well be a dramatic means of repre­ senting the process whereby a Cynic, by definition an outsider, came in time to be regarded as an unofficial moral authority in Athens It thus establishes a focal image of Demonax, different facets of which form the subjects of the briefer chreiai which follow 44 SEMEIA philosopher, he replied, "Who told you I was a philosopher?" (13). This natural antipathy to taking one's role too seriously leads Demonax to point out embarrassing incongruities to those who abuse the authority of their positions. Thus when he saw a Spartan beating a slave he remarked dryly, "Stop treating him as your equal!" (46). This is a complex bit of wit. First, it ridicules the Spartans by alluding to their notorious custom of submitting to flagellation to inure themselves to hardship. Second, it sug­ gests that whoever beats his slave is himself no better than a slave. In requiring the reader or auditor to fill in these steps to appreciate the humor of the story, it functions, as does any joke worth laughing at, like an enthymeme. We "get the point" of the joke when we recognize and interpret what is implicit in the story. Similarly, when a depilated Roman proconsul was about to punish a Cynic severely for having called him a catamite, Demonax intervened in defense of Cynic license (παρρησία). When the proconsul asked him to propose an alternative punishment for a second offense, Demonax retorted, "Depilate him!" (50). In this exchange the moral authority of the official, sanctioned by law (νόμος), is deftly appropriated by the philosopher empowered by παρρησία. Implicit in Demonax's method is Dr. Johnson's advice: "A man should pass a part of his time with the laughters, by which means anything particular or ridiculous might be presented to his view and corrected (cited by Vance: 210)." Thus most of the Demonax is devoted to anecdotes that dramatize the philosopher as an interesting example of the serio­ comic type, a specialist in the techniques of comic deflation. Demonax's wit is, therefore, usually tendentious, but it can also be purely playful, "wit for its own sake."9 His forte is not Cynic denunciation or shrewd Socratic questioning, but the one-liner in the tradition of Diogenes. Much of his humor is verbal and works through puns and word play (15,17,19, 2i, 29, 30, 31, 47-49, 54, 56). As noted above, he is shown characteristically making a reply, not asking a question. His only working assumption, one which he shares with Diogenes and Socrates, is that most people he meets are in some sense poseurs. His practice applies Plato's theory (Philb. 48-50) that one becomes comic through a lapse in self-knowledge; as though wearing the ring of Gyges with reverse effect, the respect in which the comic figure is risible tends to be invisible to himself (Bergson: 71).

9 Cf S. Freud (688-90) "It is easy to guess the character of the witticism by the kind of reaction that wit exerts on the hearer Sometimes wit is 'wit for its own sake' and serves no other particular purpose then again it places itself at the service of such a tendency, i.e., it becomes tendentious Only that form of wit which has such a tendency runs the risk of ruffling people who do not wish to hear it 'Harmless' or 'abstract' wit should in no way convey the same meaning as 'shallow' or 'poor' wit A harmless jest, 1 e , a witticism without a tendency, can also be very rich in content and express something worthwhile " BRANHAM: AUTHORIZING HUMOR 45

Demonactean wit seeks to expose these blind spots by calling attention to the discrepancy between solipsistic fantasies and public realities. For example, when the wealthy sophist, Herodes Atticus, was ostentatiously mourning the death of his favorite slave, Polydeuces, he continued to have the dead man's chariot prepared and his dinner served as if he were still alive. When he heard that Demonax had arrived with a message from Polydeuces, Herodes assumed that he was falling in with his pretense like everyone else, but Demonax's message was: "Polydeuces is unhappy with you for not coming to join him at once" (24). Similarly, a muscular Roman soldier who had just given a demonstration of his prowess with the sword on a post asked Demonax what he thought of his swordsmanship: "Excellent—if you have a wooden adversary" (38). All the prominent qualities of Demonax as he is presented in the anecdotes, the purposeful application of wit, verbal play and ridicule, his detachment, self-deprecating humor, and aversion to αλαζονεία, corre­ spond to common characteristics of Lucian's varied authorial stances. Demonax uses wit Lucianically to provoke his interlocutors to consider themselves and their situations from unexpected and often incongruous perspectives. The recurring theme of the anecdotes is the philosopher's resistance to deception, particularly self-deception. The most frequent targets of his witticisms are those who arrogate illusory powers and beguile themselves and others with inflated self-images. Of particular significance is Demonax's skepticism which on several occasions pits him against theorists, prophets, and magicians, the preeminent άΚαζωνες of the day (22, 23, 27). Significantly, the vast majority of his barbs are aimed at sophists, philosophers, and religious figures (12,14,19, 25, 28-9, 31, 33, 36, 44, 48, 53, 56), and secondly, at representatives of officialdom, wealthy aristocrats, and Roman officers (15,18, 32, 38,41, 50, 51). Although Demonax expresses his admiration for Thersites as a proto­ typical Cynic (61), Lucian is careful to distinguish his comic style from the noisome abuse of Cynic street preachers in the story of his encounter with the infamous Cynic, Peregrinus Proteus. Peregrinus reproaches the jocular Demonax for his obvious lack of seriousness, for his habit of jesting and laughing with everyone (ότι εγελα τα πολλά και τοΐς ανθρωποις προσεπαιζε 2ΐ), and accuses him of "not acting like a real Cynic" (ού κυνας). Alluding to the misanthropic tendencies inherent in the harsher examples of the Cynic style (κυνικός τρόπος) and the root meaning of "Cynic" ("dog-like") Demonax replies simply ουκ ανθρωπίζεις, "you aren't really human." As Sartre argues, echoing Rabelais: "Laughter is proper to man because man is the only animal that takes itself seriously: hilarity denounces false- φ SEMEIA seriousness in the name of true-seriousness."10 It is an argument which Lucían and Demonax would obviously have appreciated. In Demonax, Lucian presents the Socratic tradition persisting in an esoteric role in which humor becomes a means of satire and refutation, reflecting the discovery, not only of the resources of humor as a rhetorical instrument, but as a source of insight: For "all humor and much intelligence entails an ability to think on two planes at once" (Redfern: 2). The chreia is Lucian's vehicle for illustrating why this is so.

WORKS CITED

Aristotle 1983 Aristotle Vol 12 The Parts of Animals Ed and Trans A L Peck LCL Cambridge Harvard University Press Bergson, Η 1956 "Laughter " Pp 61-190 in Comedy Ed W Sypher Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press Boswell, James 1904 Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol 4 Ed G Β Hill New York Harper Bros

Branham, R Bracht 1989 Unruly Eloquence Lucían and the Comedy of Traditions Cambridge Harvard University Press Butts, J R 1986 "The Progymnasmata of Theon A New Text with Translation and Commentary " Ph D Dissertation Claremont Graduate School Caws, Ρ 1984 "Flaubert's Laughter " Philosophy and Literature 8 2 167-180 Cohen, Τ 1983 "Jokes" Pp 120-36 in Pleasure, Preference and Value Ed E Schaper Cambridge Cambridge University Press Demetrius 1902 De Elocutione - Demetrius on Style Ed W Rhys Roberts Cambridge Cambridge University Press Douglas, Mary 1975 "Jokes " Pp 90-104 in Implicit Meanings London Rutledge & Kegan Paul

10 Sartre 821 Cited and trans Ρ Caws 173-4 Cf Rabelais's preface to Gargan­ tua, cf also Bergson 62, Aristotle (3 10 [673a]) " no animal but man ever laughs " BRANHAM AUTHORIZING HUMOR 47

Drury, Martin 1985 "Appendix of Authors and Works " Pp 719-892 in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, I Greek Literature Eds Ρ E Easterling, BMW Knox Cambridge Cambridge University Press Dudley, D R 1937 A History of Cynicism London Metheun

Freud, S 1938 "The Tendencies of Wit " Pp 688-708 m The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud Trans A A Brill New York Modern Library 1907 "Idealbild Untersuchungen über die Lucienische Vita Demonactis' " Philologus Supplementband 10 558-574

Hock, R F and Ε Ν O'Neil (eds ) 1986 The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric Volume I The Progymnasmata Atlanta Scholars Jones, C Ρ 1986 Culture and Society in Lucían Cambridge Harvard University Press Kennedy, G A 1984 New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press Kindstrand, J F 1986 "Diogenes Laertius and the Chreia' Tradition " Elenchos 7 1-2 217-243 Koestler, A 1964 The Act of Creation London Hutchinson Long, A A 1985 "Post-Aristotelian Philosophy " Pp 622-642 in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, I Greek Literature Eds Ρ E Easterling, BMW Knox Cambridge Cambridge University

Lucían 1905 The Works of Lucían Samosata Trans H W and F G Fowler Oxford Clarendon 1972-80 Opera Vols 1-4 Ed M D Macleod Oxford Oxford University Press Mack, Β L and V Κ Robbms 1989 Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels Sonoma, Ca Polebridge Malherbe, A J 1977 The Cynic Epistles A Study Edition Missoula, Mt Scholars Rader, R 1985 "Literary Form in Factual Narrative " Pp 25-52 in Boswell s Life of Johnson New Questions, New Answers Ed J A Vance Athens, Ga University of Georgia Press Redfern, W Ρ 1985 Puns Oxford Basil Blackwell 48 SEMEIA

Relihan, J 1993 Ancient Menippean Satire Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press Sartre, Jean Paul 1971 L'idiot de la Famille Gustave Flaubert de 1821 a 1857, Vol 1 Paris Gallimard Vance, J A 1985 "The Laughing Johnson and the Shaping of Boswell's Life " Pp 204-227 in Boswell's Life of Johnson New Questions, New Answers Ed J A Vance Athens, Ga University of Georgia Press ^s

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